The Prince and the Artist A MONA Moment By Ron Roth Director Museum of Nebraska Art

In our last program, I introduced you to Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist who in 1832 accompanied a 2,500 mile expedition up the Missouri River led by the naturalist, explorer, Prince Alexander Philip Maxmillian.

Bodmer's portraits of native Americans and paintings of the landscape of the upper Missouri remain one of the great achievements of American art. Art historian William Goetzmann has written, "No other painter of the American Indian came close to the ethnographic accuracy that Bodmer achieved in regard to clothing, ornamentation, body marking, accoutrements and ceremonial paraphernalia."

We can learn a great deal about the life of the plains Indians by a close look at Bodmer's work. For instance, let's examine for a moment an aquatint print by Bodmer called Funeral Scaffold of a Sioux Chief. The funeral scaffold itself is in the right, middle ground of the print, dramatically silhouetted against the sky. Bodmer observed many of these so called "platform graves" in villages throughout the upper Missouri. The body of the dead Sioux warrior was wrapped in a blanket or robe. It was elevated on stilts to protect the body from scavenging animals and perhaps that is the reason for the tree branches latticed around the body like a protective cocoon.

They found these scaffolds constructed directly in limbs in trees in the forest, symbolic perhaps of the spirit being re-interred back into the embrace of the earth.

There is a great deal more information. Bodmer gives us an idea of the scale of the teepees with the detail of someone entering the teepee in the left background. He was told that one teepee required up to fourteen large Buffalo hides for its construction. Of course, things Buffalo are everywhere: the robes, clothing; perhaps Buffalo stew is being prepared in one of the teepees. The Buffalo was fundamental to the life of the plains Indians.

We notice quite a few dogs depicted in this print. Dogs were beasts of burden. For instance, just visible in the far-left corner of the print is a curricular, netted attachment on some long poles. This is a travois. The opposite ends of the poles were harnessed to a dog and were use to transport bundles or baggage.

The men are smoking pipes, a common, ritual activity. Some pipes were fashioned to "reflect a spiritual belief or personal vision, and the pipe represented a deity.

These and hundreds of other details are part of the irreplaceable visual treasure Bodner left us.

This has been Ron Roth, Director. . . . .